ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

To all of our fans:
Inside Outside is not available anymore as CD. Our new Record Comany released Tertia instead!!

Crystal Rain. Markus Burger showers us
with crystalline raindrops of sound. Jan
von Klewitz makes his horn sing, like
an iridescent mating call. The invitation to
a sensual voyage has been issued. That
voyage lasts an hour, one hour in the life of
two peaceful souls, a length of time that tells us
nothing. If music can do one
thing for us, it does that one thing particularly
effectively here: it suspends our everyday
conception of time. Many boundaries are blurred here,
everything is in a state of flux. The listener
can dive in, bathe in the sound, float upon it.
And the spatial sound summons up a sound
space known for its capacity to do something
with a person, to release inner mobility.
Even though the music was not made in a
church but in a worldly studio, the very title
and cover of the CD lead us to a place more
attuned than most to listening to the voice
inside and to messages from outside.
INSIDE OUTSIDE builds on the ideas of
its predecessor SPIRITUAL STANDARDS. Last
time it was German chorales, hymns and
Christmas carols that were promoted to
»spiritual standards« (and - thank God? -
not to »Swingin' Christmas«); this time,
we hear two more chorales and two Handel arrangements.
Now, jazz musicians are not exactly noted
for their faithfulness to the Urtext. But a
refreshingly disrespectful approach to
hallowed originals is not the improviser's
only virtue. Making »something
borrowed« into something of one's own
need not mean reducing a composition
to a mere melodic-harmonic skeleton.
And even if improvisation involves
turning the ball of sound inside out,
the aim is often to extract the essence
of the piece - a refreshingly respectful
approach. Burger and von Klewitz believe they owe it
to the content of Bach's and Handel's
pieces to read between the notes of those
pieces. And this form of identification
deprives the dry Teutonic term Fremdkomposition
of the chilly undertone
inherent in »someone else's work«.
Most of the repertoire is »all their own
work«, not that this does anything to
change the spiritual character of the
whole. This could have been done
differently, of course, if the »material« - as
originally envisaged for a time - had been
recorded by the SEPTER BOURBON quartet
(the Burger/von Klewitz axis plus rhythm
group). But in the end things took a
different course.
Markus Burger fell ill. So seriously, that he
had to change the way he lived.
Value judgments lost their precedence,
rearranging themselves so that what used
to seem important now appeared
unimportant - and vice versa. The first
signs of this transformation were evident
on ULTREYA, a solo album from 2002,
representing the lessons learned from a
three-year illness. Burger overcame it,
having gained the strength he needed
from many sources, old and new, and in
particular from meditation. His relationship
to nature and to time began changing
(as can be detected in numbers like
Stundenglas or The Marathon Man). Extramusical
passions like fishing and photography
had their own contribution to
make. The need for peace and for greater
depth is unmistakable on INSIDE OUTSIDE.
It shows how Burger and von Klewitz have
profited from a personal relationship that
has matured over many years, from
intuitive understanding, from spiritual
concord and harmony. The continuation of
a (musical) love affair. And one that
can survive physical separation: the
saxophonist lives in Berlin, the pianist has
now settled in Los Angeles.
Sometimes the music is soft as alabaster,
sometimes exultant as an anthem, at no
time does it descend into the merely
emotional. Endowed with all the harmonic
subtleties of jazz, these musicians show
what sorts out the men from the boys, as
Pat Metheny put it; they see beauty in
simple things and aren't afraid of major
common chords.
Harmonically, the duo cover wide expanses
within a narrowly circumscribed range of
sounds, inside - but, as if in express
observance of the title, outside as well:
specifically, when the two of them freely
interact in short interludes, letting tension
build up. Their sonic image, too, diverges
from the well-tempered: the clavier is
prepared piano, the saxophone has
clattering keys.
Markus Burger and Jan von Klewitz do their
work inside and outside. But this pair of
antonyms has a further, deeper meaning,
beyond the musical surface. Burger and
von Klewitz transport the inside to the
outside. Intimate as this duo may sound,
INSIDE OUTSIDE does not extend an
invitation to introverted contemplation:
something is being expressed here,
pushing the envelope from within,
communicating. Even when the two seem
lost to the world and wrapped up in their
musical thoughts, we still sense them near
to us. So much so, that the listener too
feels something in motion, in vibration.
And sooner or later it seems to be there ...
the silent choir of an imaginary congregation.
Karsten Mützelfeldt

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